Artist

“For some fifteen years,” declared L. Ron Hubbard in a pivotal essay from 1965, “I have been studying, among other branches of philosophy, the subject of art.”

His reasons were twofold. First and foremost, as he explained, “Art is the least-codified of human endeavors and the most misunderstood.” Even its very definition, he noted, was still subject to intense debate. Thus, on a purely academic level, he wished to examine the subject in its broadest and most essential terms, and thereby resolve questions philosophers and critics have long pondered, including that most basic of all questions, “What is Art?”

Yet there was another reason for his interest in the subject and it follows from the fact that quite apart from all else L. Ron Hubbard accomplished, he was himself an artist. Hence this from thirty years preceding:

“Capturing my own dreams in words, paint or music and then seeing them live is the highest kind of excitement.”

While later and as an all-encompassing statement from the cusp of Scientology:

“The artist has an enormous role in the enhancement of today’s and the creation of tomorrow’s reality. He operates in a rank in advance of science as to the necessities and requirements of Man. The elevation of a culture can be measured directly by the numbers of its people working in the field of aesthetics. Because the artist deals in future realities, he always seeks improvements or changes in the existing reality. This makes the artist, inevitably and invariably, a rebel against the status quo. The artist, day by day, by postulating the new realities of the future, accomplishes peaceful revolution.”

Unquestionably, then, “This rather vast subject of art,” as he described it, was not one he took lightly and, in fact, it is probably impossible to consider the life of L. Ron Hubbard without considering his artistic achievements.